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I built what I think is a pretty cool PC. Its a Shoanti, Steel Bound Fighter. A Shoanti's traditional weapon is an earth breaker which works nicely with the SBF concept. There is even a trait, Shoanti Tatoo, that gives you proficiency with earth breakers. I've already taken the feat Die Hard figuring that at 9th level, when the intelligent earth breaker gets a spell, it can be something to bail my fighter out when he falls below zero HP. Get it? The feat allows my fighter to remain concious even if he falls below zero HP and the plan is that when that happens, the weapon casts some spell to bail him out. But what spell? Its a 3rd level spell so it could just be cure serious and that'd be fine. But what I really want is to teleport (or something) out of trouble. All the spells I can find are either too high a level or the range is personal. It doesn't do much good for the weapon to make itself invisible, for example. I can't find a 3rd level or lower touch spell that gets a PC out of trouble. Suggestions?

I found a average weapon damage calculator
on the web. What do you think?

I am new to paizo and I am also blind. I have been having a little trouble with the user interface. I posted a reply to your post on a different message.

Anyway, posting a second reply, I can't just pick up a katana later because the Steel Bound Fighter is "bound" to a weapon type that is selected at 1st level. The weapon eventually becomes intelligent. There are pluses and minuses to any archetype but I am playing a big dumb fighter and it will just be really, really cool to have him have an intelligent weapon.The moment the thing "awakens", it will have a higher INT and CHA than the big, dumb fighter.

As a mathematician, my main reaction is, "Huh?"

Well, maybe you are trying to make the following point: A roll of 18 does not do zero damage for a falcata. Therefore, the expected value for 18-20 for the falcata is higher than the falchion.

Lets go right to the max and assume you've taken the Improve Crit feat which doubles the crit range of your weapon. The falchion now crits on a 15-20 and the falcata crits on 17-20. Assume a fighter who does 20 points of damage. From 15-20, the falchion would be 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40. Obviously, that averages out to 40. But the falcata would be 20, 20, 60, 60, 60, 60. That averages out to 46.6.

Yeah, that comment about the feat was just a mistake. I had to take a feat to use a bastard sword and I until I lookedit up just now, I thought it was because I wanted to use it one-handed.

I saw that thread you are referring to and while I don't question the math, I think it's not as complicated as the guy made it out to be. His point is valid, at some point crit damage overwhelms base damage. That's generally around 19 points of bonus for any weapon -- some a little more, some a little less. But to compare different crit ranges, you just need to calculate expected value. Multiply probability of winning by the payoff. If you're playing a game that gives you a 50-50 chance of doubling your money you are going to break even, right? So the expected value is 1, dead even. An 18-20 crit rage is 15%. 15% x 2 = 0.3. On the average, you will get to apply 30% of your damage via crits. With a 19-20/x3 crit, it's also 30% (10%x3). It doesn't matter if you are doing 10, 20, or 50 points of damage. It's a tie.

Note that the expected value for most weapons is 10% (5% x2). with 4x crit weapons, it's 20% (5% x 4). There is some kind of weird gnome weapon that does 19-20/x4. That's 40%.

I've never played a high level fighter before but just for the fun of it, I am about to play a Steel Bound Fighter. It means I have to pick my character's weapon before I start playing him. I am considering 2 weapons, the falcion and the falcata. The reason is the crit stats, of course. Falchion crits on 18-20/x2. The falcata is 19-20/x3. Mathematically, a 15% chance of doing double damage equals a 10% chance of doing triple damage. So that's a tie mathematically but I'm not so sure it's a tie in role-playing terms.

Also, I am thinking right now that whichever weapon I take, I'll want to wield it two-handed anyway. But I am worried I might come to regret that at higher levels and start wishing I had a shield. The falchion is a two-handed weapon so I'd have to take a feat to use it one-handed. The falcata is a one-handed weapon but It is exotic so I'd have to take a feat to use it at all.

What to do?

Why is a spell with a range of personal not a touch spell?

Can a familiar deliver a spell with a target of "you" and/or a range of "personal"? Say the spell caster anticipated being tied and gagged. Can he cast alter self in advance and have his familiar deliver it to himself after he is tied/gagged?

Deliver Touch Spells (Su): If the master is 3rd level or
higher, a familiar can deliver touch spells for him. If the
master and the familiar are in contact at the time the
master casts a touch spell, he can designate his familiar
as the “toucher.” The familiar can then deliver the touch
spell just as the master would.

I would like to propose that ranges for spells be standardised in order to make it possible to write an application that searches for spells by range. I am currently developing a web app to do that but I had to massage the data quite a bit to make it work. I put together some tentative rules that would standardize the range for spells and I am hoping to get some feedback and/or corrections.

1. A spell shall have one of the ranges, Close, Medium, Long, Unlimited, Personal, Touch, or See text.
2. Any spell cast on "you" has a range of "Personal" even if the spell has an area of effect.
3. Any spell cast on an object you touch has a range of "Touch" eeven if the spell targets several objects.
4. Spells with a range of 30 feet or less are range "Close".
5. Spells with a range greater than 30 feet but less than 100 are range "Medium".
6. Spells with a range of 100 feet or more are of range "Long".
7. Spells with no range limit are "Unlimited".

Below is a list of manual fixes I made to the spells in the spell_full.csv data file. The first item on each line is the spell name, second is what I change the range to, third is what it is listed in the csv file. A lot of spells do not have any range listed. Some have things that would make more sense in the "Effect" or "Targets" field. Some I was able to glean from similar spells.

Abundant Ammunition # touch #
Aura Of Distraction # personal #
Ban Corruption # personal #
Blaze of Glory # personal #
Bless Army # unlimited # 1 hex
Burst Of Force # personal #
Burst Of Glory # personal #
Call Animal # see text # see description
Conditional Favor # touch #
Damnation # personal #
Damnation Stride # long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level) #
Death Candle # touch #
Detect Charm # medium (60 ft.) #
Detect Relations # medium #
Fickle Winds # Close #
Explode Head # close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels) #
Fire of Entanglement # see text # special; see text
Fire of Judgment # see text # special, see text
Fire of Vengeance # see text # special, see text
Frozen Note # close #
Guards and Wards # see text # anywhere within the area to be warded
Hammer Of Mending # close, 10 ft. #
Healing Flames # personal #
Imbue Army Special Ability # unlimited # 1 hex
Instant Fake # touch #
Invisibility Sphere # touch #
Massacre # medium #
Paranoia # close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels) #
Repulsion # personal # Up to 10 ft per level
Sonic Form # personal #
Stone Throwing # touch #
Substitute Trail # see text #
Surmount Affliction # personal #
Tactical Insight # unlimited # 1 hex
Tattoo Potion # touch # 1 potion
Telekinetic Storm # personal #

Suggestion: On spell pages, it lists the level of the spell for each class, "Bard 2, Ranger 2", etc. it would be helpful if those were links back to the Bard/Ranger spell lists. If you're poking around spell lists you could click on "Ranger 2", for example, and get right back to the list of 2nd level Ranger spells. I gotta admit I got this idea from another web site that does that.

I'd like to play blind character because I am blind. I was wondering how much of the stuff in this thread I could expect my DM to let me do. Am I expecting too much to ask him to let me take the Blind Zeal trait?